Cold Reading Summary (C7): Cause and Effect

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The idea of cause and effect is one of the most important concepts for a cold reader to understand.

You’ve probably heard the phrase “correlation does not imply causation”. This means that just because two things occur together does not mean that one causes the other. 

Although we all know this to be true, it's a rule we often ignore in our daily lives.

Although it’s impossible to prove, the reason we ignore this rule is probably due to natural selection and evolution.

Here’s an example:tent. 

One day a man and his son were walking and the man got bitten by a snake. It was a venomous snake and the man died. From this time on, every time the boy saw a snake, any snake, he ran. Even though the majority of snakes the boy encounters in his life are harmless, it makes sense for him to run. In his mind, snakes mean danger. He might be wrong about this 999 times out of 1000, but it pays to avoid that one time he would be right.

The point is, that it’s better to have a cause-effect generator that is wrong most of the time than to not have one at all.

In our modern society, our cause-effect generators have adapted to not only saving our lives, but to help us be more efficient. 

We often subconsciously and immediately assume cause-effect relationships which prevents us from having to investigate further, which would take time. 

This is usually a good thing, but it also leaves us open to manipulation. It means that people can use things like social proof and authority bias to guide our decisions. 

Read the next chapter here.

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