Re: Rationality
Posted: November 29th, 2019, 12:40 pm
Do you not think rationality builds upon functional practical knowledge from the ground up? Or does the Elephant stand on the back of a Tortoise?
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Agreed but I would not want to deny the possibility that the microsecond decisions made with what we like to call "instinct" are not based on a process of reason (albeit very fast), just not conscious.Pattern-chaser wrote: ↑November 29th, 2019, 12:27 pmYou missed my point, not that it was all that central to our discussion. My point is that, in an example such as we are considering here, there is no time for rational, conscious, thought. It's instinct or nothing. Our view of reality is roughly 250 ms in the past, because that's how long it takes our brain/mind to process what comes in via our senses, and make some kind of sense of it all. To act in a shorter time than that is only possible for us if our instinctive and (as you say) unconscious minds do the work for us.
As for whether our instinctive behaviour is rational, I don't know, but my guess is that it is not. Reason and logic seem far too considered and, well, conscious, for our unconscious minds to work likewise. But who knows?
See and I'd argue from a purely theoretical standpoint that reason by definition never can become disconnected from it's fundamental practical role. What you are talking about is a misapplication or a perversion of reason.
Right, and I'd add - as I extrapolated over the rest of my post, that this is that perversion in it's most common low-hanging fruit form but that even as one gives up on the lever-pulling payouts of such perversions and even embraces the extinction of their own personal germ line for that knowledge they still run into similar barriers such as what kinds of beliefs one can still hold and survive in a culture or, if they move out the woods of Alaska to do their thinking away from people, there are still potential truths that could make the internal trade-offs to go on living as a human being untenable.Pantagruel wrote: ↑November 29th, 2019, 2:10 pm See and I'd argue from a purely theoretical standpoint that reason by definition never can become disconnected from it's fundamental practical role. What you are talking about is a misapplication or a perversion of reason.
A strong case could be made for the opposite argument: that an over-reliance on reason is causing our species to lose at the survival/procreation game, in that it has produced industrial pollution, environmental degradation and destruction, high-tech warfare, etc.Papus79: once any form of reason lifts too far out of the 'common sense' or 'tailored reasoning that's good for our thriving' it starts causing us to lose at the survival and procreation game which exists in very narrow terms.
Does not the current state of the world (the things I just mentioned) disprove your hypothesis? What is practical about ruining one's own habitat?Pantagruel: See and I'd argue from a purely theoretical standpoint that reason by definition never can become disconnected from it's fundamental practical role.
It's clearly a sign that we're overshooting our capacities to care. In a lot of ways it reminds me of tragedy of the commons or any game theorhetical story where you get to climb to the top of your tribe, possibly even elevate your tribe, and so at the expense of the rest of the world and possibly even undercut the future of your grandchildren but the immediate payout is immense. Bret Weinstein seems to have a wonderfully tidy way of putting this - ie. that the selected traits, adaptations, or phenotypes that got us here at one given time could be the same traits that would destroy us if we held on to them for too long. It's a bit like all of these traits have relevant ranges where they're operant and helpful, like how capitalism was a viable welfare or really workfare system until automation shows that it isn't and/or complete degredation of the environment, undercutting of our survival, etc. shows that we were not only stripping the structure we depend on to throw it in the engine so we could keep playing our game but that at it's apex it became so predatory that the ultimate form of efficiency in that system is something like an addict/dealer relationship where the dealer controls all of those dopamine hits - whether it's a hard drug, the right smart phone app, or the latest piece of clothing or other status symbol which becomes the new minimum requirement for the opposite sex's acceptance of you as a partner whose making it in the world. In a lot of ways the ideal outcome for shareholder ROI is equivalent to a stick-up or deals you can't refuse.Felix wrote: ↑November 29th, 2019, 5:46 pmDoes not the current state of the world (the things I just mentioned) disprove your hypothesis? What is practical about ruining one's own habitat?Pantagruel: See and I'd argue from a purely theoretical standpoint that reason by definition never can become disconnected from it's fundamental practical role.
It is a particular set of tools, and most who use these tools think they are doing what you say in the first question above. But one can use these tools and not be doing that. We are very used to assuming that rationality means thinking well in a certain way. I think it is more useful to think of it as thinking in a certain way. Or problem solving in a certain way. Might be done well. Might not be.Pantagruel wrote: ↑November 29th, 2019, 12:40 pm Do you not think rationality builds upon functional practical knowledge from the ground up? Or does the Elephant stand on the back of a Tortoise?
Felix wrote: ↑November 29th, 2019, 5:46 pm A strong case could be made for the opposite argument: that an over-reliance on reason is causing our species to lose at the survival/procreation game, in that it has produced industrial pollution, environmental degradation and destruction, high-tech warfare, etc.Yes, the kind of reason the left brain thinks is king.
They are going to tell you that this is not the result of reason, but greed or poor reasoning which isn't reason. But I agree with you. The type of linear, break things into parts, eliminate emotion as much as you can, deny intuition reasoning of the left brain is destroying things.
I'd agree 100%. I think that knowledge has to advance across all fields equally in the long run, for progress to be made. If the global knowledge paradigm moves in any one direction too long (i.e. technical) then progress in that field will become increasingly difficult. Meanwhile, negative social pressure will most likely be applied in the dimension of the neglected social fields (similar to Durkheim's idea of anomie).
First perusal of the content of this new forum and who should I come across first but you sir! Glad to see I'll be in good company here.Pantagruel wrote: ↑November 26th, 2019, 11:09 am Rational is following the rules of reason. So does this mean the rules of reason that predominate in one's current place and time? When the well-known Transcendentalist Margaret Fuller announced "I accept the universe", Carlyle is reported to have said "Gad, she better!"
Presumably 'full rationality' (your 'levels up') includes the awareness that current rational paradigms are limited, approximate, or otherwise subject to enhancement or improvement.
He sounds interesting. Is there a sort of primer on him, or must I scan through all of it to see what he's up to?
TBH I'm mostly picking at his material on Youtube for the moment, I've been hearing about him on and off from various places including a few people I chat with somewhere else for a while (they also bring up Donna Haraway) and a lot of the contexts that I heard him being brought up in, especially as adjacent to James Lovelock, caught my interest.Pattern-chaser wrote: ↑November 30th, 2019, 7:17 am A brief, off-topic interruption (sorry! ):
He sounds interesting. Is there a sort of primer on him, or must I scan through all of it to see what he's up to?
Anything that allows us to react faster than we ourselves can think must be pre-programmed (or some logical equivalent). I honestly can't see how any form of considered thought is possible in these timescales. It takes too long. We'd be dead, as several other commentators have observed. So it's fight or flight, or some similar pre-programmed response.
This, as you know well, is driven by unconscious thought; thought (processes) of which we are unconscious or unaware. So it is quite impossible for us to be aware - or even to become aware? - of our unconscious thoughts themselves, or their nature. In scientific terms, we are stopped by our absolute inability to make empirical observations. So can mere speculation profit us here, I wonder?Sculptor1 wrote: ↑November 29th, 2019, 12:47 pm When I think how well I drive; never thinking consciously about my gear changes as I take the racing line over the roundabout, whilst still being aware of what is in the mirrors (behind left and right), and singing along to Led Zep, and scratching my nose - the human brain is far more than consciousness, and I can't see how all this can happen with no reasoning.