Rationality is overrated

I’ll see your point and raise you one even better :smiley:. I think sometimes, one ought to follow one’s intuition even though that intuition may be wrong. Off the top of my head, I can think of a scenario in which I feel strongly, intuitively, that if I go out for a while, something wonderful will happen to me. Now I go out, spend a couple hours at the mall, nothing happens, and I come home. Maybe my unconscious just made that up–made me believe that I “knew” something wonderful was going to happen if I got out of the house–because the real reason I needed to get out of the house was because there was some kind of tension, some resentment or anger with a family member, but since I didn’t want to admit this to myself, my unconscious gave me another (false) reason to get out of the house.

I think this happens sometimes and it is a testament to the fact that the unconscious knows what it’s doing even if it seems irrational to us from the point of view of our conscious mind. The unconscious pulls our strings and it doesn’t always “speak” to us in a straight forward, direct manner, but it knows what it’s doing. This is not to say it can never be wrong, but that it deserve more credit than we often give it, and furthermore that we can sometimes do a lot of damage to ourselves by fighting against certain unconscious or intuitive impulses or “feelings” just because we can’t see any rationality behind them.

I agree in an objective context. But as you probably know, I’m a subjectivist. To me, whatever the hell it is you rationalize, that is reality for you–the catch being that you can make up whatever reality you want for yourself.

Sure thing. That’s just it. No one knows what is good in the context of a reality that relates to everything. Even the knowledge of the ‘reality’ that people use to try and maintain a sane and rational way of life is incomplete and is limited but all right for basic predictability and communication. Anyway, we only know what’s good for us. A person’s abilities are based on that. Nothing wrong with it. If it were not the case, there would be something wrong with you. But rationality in the context of all people brings right and wrong into operation. As long as we are caught up in opposites we will always be choosy and vacillate.

Thrilled!

Wonderful example. There is also training the intuition. It is going to be wrong sometimes. So you listen once and it is wrong and then set up the most anal rational Schedule possible for the rest of your Life. Or, over time, as you respect this facility, it does work fairly effectively.

A kind of parallel example to yours is the choice of romantic partner. You may make what turns out to be the wrong choice for the rest of your Life, but it may very well have been the perfect choice to learn whatever you needed to learn then.

Yes, and I Think it will do whatever it has to do including make us sick to get our attention.

All great Points.

Here’s an excellent 13 minute interview with Dan Sperber called The Enigma of Reason. He argues in it that finding the truth is that last thing reason evolved for.

shahspace.com/enigma_of_reason.mp3

Rationality is not overrated. It is more underrated than overrated. Perhaps it was overrated in the past (e.g. during the Age of Enlightenment), but currently it is not overrated. In times where everything has to be femine, feministic, consumeristic, “politically correct”, emotional … and so on and so forth …, there is no or at least not enough room for rationality.

So you gonna try to be rational with these guys? Good luck!

Who are “these guys”?

The feministas, consumerists, PC-guys, emotional people… all those things you mentioned.

if rationality is over-rated, how come you tried so hard to bind your entire thesis of its over-rated nature with more rationality?

Because overrated doesn’t mean completely useless.

So, then, it’s under-rated at the same time as being over-rated?

No, it’s very simple. Here’s a spectrum:

← Completely useless … overrated … just right … underrated →

My original claim was that rationality is over here:

← Completely useless … overrated … just right … underrated →
…[b]^[1]

Then you said: so it’s over here?

Completely useless … overrated … just right … underrated →
…[b]^[2]

Then I said: Uh… no, it’s over here:

← Completely useless … overrated … just right … underrated →
…[b]^[3]

Then you said: so it’s over here?

← Completely useless … overrated … just right … underrated
…[b]^[4]

Then I said:

](*,)


  1. /b ↩︎

  2. /b ↩︎

  3. /b ↩︎

  4. /b ↩︎

Mostly, I am analyzing them, and analyzing has to do with rationality.

Oh yeah, definitely use rationality there (but also, make room for instinct, intuition).

What I’m talking about in this thread is strategies for engaging with people when they have in mind to exploit your commitment to rationality. ← In those cases, I’m arguing, it may be to your advantage to use different approaches to that of rationalizing (for example, trolling… have you ever tried to be rational with a troll?.. have you ever tried to troll a troll?.. which works better?)

Think for example of some of the junk mail you get sometimes: MAKE $10,000 IN A WEEK!!! ← Don’t you just hit delete on those? But is that the most rational thing to do? I mean, rationally, there will be a non-zero chance that they’re right, that you could make $10,000 in a week. Isn’t the most rational course of action to at least investigate the offer? See if it’s real or not?

Except that’s impossible since they are mutually exclusive. Unless you redefine the concept of irrationality such that it can be made compatible with rationality.

These are two entirely different goals. When you troll, the goal is merely to frustrate the person. When you are engaging with them intellectually, you are trying to make them understand what you’re saying. The former is often a degeneration of the latter . . . when your efforts to communicate are frustrated, it is easier to divert your attention to trolling, preserving the feeling that you are succeeding in your efforts, no matter how wrong that is, than to pull back and accept reality, which is to say, failure.

Yes, and they require two entirely different approaches. I’m mainly thinking about those who will attempt to use rationality for every single encounter with another person. I’m saying that this isn’t always the best strategy. You’re right that if you switch from being rational to something like trolling, that might involved switching your goals as well, and that means you’ve failed in your original goal, but I’m also suggesting that we ought to learn to recognize when rationality will work and when it won’t from the outset. If you choose the right approach from the outset, you minimize the chance of failure period.

The first isn’t rational and the second isn’t irrational. They are simply two different goals. If you want to achieve your goals, whatever these goals are, through your own personal effort, and not by luck, you have to be rational. You have to choose what helps you move towards your goal (rationality) and not away from it (irrationality.)

We say that trolling the trolls is irrational, and therefore bad, because of the common situation in which one does not switch between one’s goals properly – one remains focused on the former goal, a goal which has nothing to do with trolling – and because in such circumstances, trolling, no matter how rational in relation to the goal of trolling, is irrational in relation to the goal of helping others understand your point.

Try positing two conflicting goals at the same time. Say, move your hand to the left and move your hand to the right. Both goals will be unmet and both attempts will be irrational (even though they are rational in relation to one of the two goals.)

Yes, you have to be rational with yourself, but not necessarily with the other. In the trolling example, you’re best bet is to look for buttons you can press, sensitive spots, triggers… and just being irrational itself can be infuriating to the other person. ← But that’s just a front. Behind the curtains, you still have to strategize in your own head, and of course that requires rationality.

However, I think sometimes instincts and intuition have their place. Often professionals, when they do their work, rely on instincts and intuitions that have been embedded in their psyche from all the tactics and lessons and experiences they’ve had in the past such that they don’t have to think them through anymore–they just have a sense for it, they just “know”. I think salespeople are like this, those who make a career out of dealing with people.

That might be one way people construe it, but in the example of trolling, I’m thinking more along the lines of deliberately saying things that are irrational in order to frustrate the person. For example, if someone says:

“I’ve been to gay bars before.”

You might say: “So you’re gay?”

Really, it’s not rational to conclude that a person is gay just because they’ve been to a gay bar, but you’d say it anyway because you know that’s how to goad him.

I can do that. :smiley:

Only irrational people separate their instincts and “gut feelings” from their rationale.