Rationality Ain't Sexy

[Xamonas Chegwé]

The time to be rational is when the emotion has passed. Taking a step back and examining your actions and their consequences cooly can lead to greater self-control and the ability to compare those strategies you were talking about, LaMont.

There is a place for emotion too, however. It evolved for a reason - because there are times when we need to act without delay in order to further our immediate ends, be that survival, procreation, or some other, urgent need. Our great advantage as a species is that we are able to examine our actions and refine our responses to those emotions. But this should be done later, in preparation for the next, similar encounter, not while faced with an armed assailant, or an über-hot member of ones preferred gender.

[Surendra Darathy]

or an über-hot member of ones preferred gender.

I like this bi-lingual coinage. It reminds me of "eigenvalue" or "characteristicwert".

[Surendra Darathy]

if we consider ourselves to be rational and have the goal of achieving better relationships with our fellow human beings, what works best, being kind and considerate or being mean-spirited and inconsiderate?

Well, the whole business of examining assumed hypothetical goals and seeing where they lead is rational. I go that kind of rationality one better and inquire about the ad absurdum endpoint of setting goals that are too distant, and then reminding ourselves about the law of unintended consequences. The unsexiness of rationality is mitigated, I am sure, by some humble awareness of the law of unintended consequences, which I think is far sexier, in the long run.

[devogue]

I thought you said Rationalia wasn't sexy for a moment.

Phew.

[Surendra Darathy]

I thought you said Rationalia wasn't sexy for a moment.

Phew.

I'm like the NRA of the reaffirmation of sexiness. You can take my sexiness away from me when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers.

Hmmm. That sounds too much like solipsistic self-reaffirmation. Sort of what you get from religious faith.

[LaMont Cranston]

I'm all for emotions, and I'm not suggesting that we should do anything to get ride of them. In fact, I doubt that's possible. One of the things we might consider here is just how much control we have over our emotions. From what I can tell, some people claim they don't have any control. A friend of mine who was a thug and also a very gentle loving guy once told me that there are plenty of people who claim they have uncontrollable anger, but it's amazing how quickly they get it under control when somebody bigger and badder than them says "Knock it off, or I"ll kick your ass."

At the very minimum, we identify those things in our lives that are the focal points of our anger, love, envy, compassion, etc. What's also true is that we all appear to have the capacity to experience the entire range of emotions, everything from intense love to extreme hate and all the gradations in between (i.e. affection, dislike, etc.). However, it also appears that different individuals experience different amounts of these emotions and the deeds that they predicate.

It may be that some people experience effortless happiness or misery, but I find that I usually require an expenditure of energy and effort to "get to happy." Of course, it also requires energy and effort to be miserable. It just so happens that getting our consciousness to happy, joyful, grateful, etc. feels a lot better. If there's more to our emotional states than just responding to our biochemistry...and I think there is...just how much control do we have when it comes to altering our moods and making choices about how we're going to live our lives based on those emotional states?

[AshtonBlack]

Read my sig. (erm not the LP quote or the programme....)

[Surendra Darathy]

If there's more to our emotional states than just responding to our biochemistry...and I think there is...just how much control do we have when it comes to altering our moods and making choices about how we're going to live our lives based on those emotional states?

What I avoid in my epistemology is assuming, for example, that "there's more" until the evidence shows that there's more.

It just seems to me that the search for control can only be justified circularly, and anyway, as it stands, the evidence for chaos and unintended consequences is greater than the evidence for "more". The evidence of "desire" is only the evidence of "desire".

[LaMont Cranston]

Surendra, OK, so you avoid assuming in your epistemology. How about considering possibilities and probabilities? How about examining what we can know, do know and might know? How about re-examining some of those things we've previously avoided to see if we have any reason to change our minds?

It would seem to me, in virtually every situation, there are the possibilities of intended and unintended consequences. Those consequences we intend are often quite predictable. The evidence for desire is manifested by how we manifest those desires by the way we live our lives. How much evidence is there actually for chaos and unintended consequences? Do you have certainty that it's real evidence, or is it an assumption on your part that the state of existence is like that?

[Surendra Darathy]

How much evidence is there actually for chaos and unintended consequences? Do you have certainty that it's real evidence, or is it an assumption on your part that the state of existence is like that?

Chaos is just relative to our proposed techniques of epistemology. Faith is like admitting that you don't really know what the bus schedule is and crossing the street with your eyes tightly shut.

[LaMont Cranston]

Surendra, However, we are not required to cross the street with our eyes tightly shut. It's easy enough for most of us to find the bus schedule and do most of the other things in our lives. We pass around pieces of metal, paper and plastic and assign values to them. As rational beings, we learn to function within the contructs of the society, and most of us achieve our goal of staying out of jail. Even people who are so irrational as to believe that God exists are able to do that, most of the time equally as efficiently as self-proclaimed rational thinkers.

Some people immediately think that the so-called law of unintended consequences means that negative things are more likely to happen, but do we really have any reason or evidence to think that. If unintended consequences happen, is it rational to think that there might be a 50-50 chance...maybe even better than that...that the unintended consequences will enhance our lives and make us happier? In my own subjective experience, I find that to be true.

[Surendra Darathy]

Even people who are so irrational as to believe that God exists are able to do that, most of the time equally as efficiently as self-proclaimed rational thinkers.

Your point here is, apparently, that believers are doing this because rationality is not sexy enough for them to leave out the other possibilities, more or less as an entertainment. For people who aren't fundies, this is only a boastful kind of compartmentalisation, for it does not speak to the delights of contemplating aesthetics rationally, instead of actually fingerpainting on the walls. The latter exercise is one of lack of restraint, rather than having anything to do with talent.

More possibilities to think about in this link.

The argument coming from the woo-head quarter is all-too-often about the restrictions felt in rationality. I think that many people want to re-infantilise themselves as adults, to reserve compartments in their mental life where personal responsibility for one's discourse does not extend.

I can do business with such people, if they don't bring these issues into the discursive space between us. Once they have done so, there is a certain sort of intellectual respect I withdraw, pending further evaluation. If people want to express something about God, and cannot do it with paint or sculpture or music, and only with the prosaic, well, talk is cheap.

[Pappa]

I would start with a "Critical Thinking" class in school, to be done as early as is appropriate.

+1.... that's vital and would be beneficial in a huge number of ways.

[Surendra Darathy]

I would start with a "Critical Thinking" class in school, to be done as early as is appropriate.

+1.... that's vital and would be beneficial in a huge number of ways.

This brings up the uncomfortable topic of deciding on who the ultra-rationals are to decide who's qualified to teach so-called "Critical Thinking".


Beneficial? Yes! If only it would stop people from pontificating on what it will take to save humanity from extinction!

Not that I am suggesting that contrarianism is rationality. But cronyism is not going to achieve rationality.

[FedUpWithFaith]

I find a rational mind as part of the overall character of a person an important part of attraction. On its own though, no.

OK babe, how about a rational mind and a 9 inch penis?