Of Cooking and Leadership

"How similar is a cat to a dog? Or, should we ask how similar a dog is to a cat? How different is one from the other? Amos Tversky (1977) showed that it matters a great deal how the question of similarity is asked. Psychologists and neuroscientists have much to say about how the mind-brain construes and computes judgments of similarity, often intuitively, spontaneously, and without effort (Medin et al. 1993)."

"Goodman (1972) famously asserted that similarity is an indeterminate construct. It cannot get off the ground without an application of massive background knowledge and assumptions that must be accepted even if they cannot be fully justified. Our intuitive judgments often reveal the background on which they stand. When we say Joey looks just like his father, we reveal how we perceive other son-father pairs."

"When we compare cats and dogs, we reveal the breadth of the context in which we consider this similarity judgment. When we judge cats and dogs to be similar, we are probably thinking about a wide world of animals, perhaps all vertebrates; when we judge them to be different, we might be focused on domesticated mammals. Occasionally, a question comes along that does not call forth intuitive judgment."

"We have to put our philosopher's hat on, select features of similarity and difference, and prepare to defend that selection. Wheth"

Similarity is necessary and useful but difficult to define and apply consistently. How similarity is questioned changes the resulting judgments, and people often compute similarity intuitively and without effort. Philosophical attempts to ground similarity logically face problems because similarity depends on background knowledge and assumptions that cannot be fully justified. Intuitive comparisons reveal what context and categories are being used, such as whether comparisons are made across many animals or within domesticated mammals. When questions do not trigger intuition, people must deliberately choose relevant features and defend those choices. Asking unusual questions can generate further questions and expand inquiry.

Read at Psychology Today