Rationalizing: How do we know for sure that we aren't?

In an effort to be rational, I suspect that you should stick to this definition for “rationalization” in English:

The educated and rational man knows that it is the negative connotation of every nuance that is given higher priority regardless of the intent of the speaker.

Hence, all rationilzation is deceptive even if we take life is self preservation as the so called “meaning of life” (which is a rationilzation in itself).

There is still a difference between a rationalization and an explanation. Self-preservation is possibly the only explanation that isn’t a rationalization.

Self preservation isn’t rationalized but life IS self preservation is (there is a difference between the two).

No.

Self-preservation is merely incidental, not primarily or meaningfully significant. You simply need to happen to keep existing if you’re going to have meaningful experiences, but “existing” and “survival instinct” (which actually doesn’t even exist) are just unrelated conditions that are necessary for actually significant things.

Life didn’t evolve and develop because it needed or wanted to survive. Life doesn’t even “want” to survive, it simply tends to act in certain ways that over time and a large enough sample size don’t end up leading it into non-existence. This is a consequence of embedded instinctual frameworks that causally determine what life does and why, in the presence of certain stimuli.

As Parodites said, when you eat your jaw muscles are simply engaged in a kind of non-conscious spasm that has simply been refined over millions of years of natural selection to do a decent job of actually tearing up whatever you put in your mouth. It’s not teleological.

Or as Nietzsche said, we don’t eat because we are hungry, we are hungry because we eat.

Dude… don’t take the mask off. Preserve the habitat.

Your “no” is just a rationilzation and nothing more.

One Liner

I think that what you would be doing is trying to justify your “reasons” for having them.
We all have emotional needs. Nothing wrong with that.

I think that rationalizations evolve into “right reasons” or reasoning when we’re able to honestly look below the surface to what is “really” happening.
I think that we may be aware that we’re rationalizing when what we hear are ad continuum “excuses” rather than real reasons.

Don’t you have an emotional need to kill and rape men (in that order)?

I’d say, if you undertake a novel action, or more probably find yourself having undertaken one seemingly out of no-where, previously foreign to your character (as you remember/hold it to be personaly) then you immediately begin to rationalize it.

Actually no, before you can choose to undertake an action previously foreign to your experience of self, you must rationalize it.

If you find yourself to have taken an action spontaneously, previously foreign to your experience of self, you must rationalize afterwards.

This is the classic “ironing out the bumps in your personal narritive” rationalization.

2nd case, desire vs. Reason, or proximal temptation vs. Long-term plans.

i.e… instant cake vs. diet plan. Both selves long term and short will rationalize like lawyers in a courtroom.

I won’t presume that because your post followed mine you are speaking to me here.
But if you are, kindly let me know and I will respond even though your response is “off the wall” to my way of thinking!

Yes, I am responding to you but not accusing you of anything.

Ok, had a breath of fresh air.

So, there are two ‘yous’ - one, the external you, which everyone sees. This you is demonstrated by actions, including speech actions, which everyone can observe/hear. And two, the internal you, which is the monologue you produce when you ask yourself, or more likely a questionnaire in a magazine asks you “what kind of person are you…?”

Which is the ‘real’ you…? Depends who’s answering.

We rationalize for two reasons, one personal, one social. Both though, stem from the same cause. Trust.

Say I’ve known Jim for ages. We met in “Don’t punch kids in the face club” back in '92. One day however, we’re walking down the street talking crap about some crap on tv. Then Jim just turns round and punches this cute little girl right into next week. Her lollipop lands next to most of her teeth on the floor.

Holy crap I think. Jim’s never done that before. In fact, most of my friendship with Jim is based on us not being the kind of people who punch kids in the face. Oh noes, my wasted emotional investment. Who is this guy…? I mean, shit, If he can do that - right out of the blue like that - he… he… could do anything

Jim starts to splutter, “I, I never told you this Bob… but you see that girl’s dress yeah…? You see it’s an unusual combination of plaid and magenta…? That, that’s the exact colour that my abusive babysitter used to wear whenever she beat me as a child, I guess… I guess… I just lashed out… Oh God, I’m so sorry.”

Now, after that rationalization I can amend my view of Jim from “ex-friend, unpredictable maniac, do not approach.” To “friend, predictable, beware of color aversion, otherwise trustworthy.” I’m happy because via this social mechanic, I can retain my useful possession, ie. the object I denote as ’ my friend jim’ in which I have invested much time, and maybe some money. Loss aversion avoided - win.

From jim’s pov. his novel action, out of nowhere, deeply disturbed his internal sense of self. Cognitive dissonance hurts. So to mend the giant plot-hole that just exploded out of nowhere in his personal narrative, he instinctively rationalized. When we say cognitive dissonance, what do we mean…? This where our ‘to be in two minds’ bit comes in, the cake/not cake selves. Immediate desire, and long term planner. Any long term planner self has very much invested in the idea that 'the me I was last week, will be the same me as next week." You can’t make a plan about anything if the major variable involved (yourself in this case) is something you can’t predict.

So, to restore the trust essential to personal function Jim must immediately square away the unprecedented action of his ‘live’ self with his “planner” self. In rationalizing, by adding a condition to his self-observed action “I randomly punch kids” to turn it into “I only punch kids wearing magenta plaid” he’s allowed his planner self to trust his live self again, and get back to planning ahead, though now with an added proviso in the user-manual.

Whether the rationalization is actually true or not, doesn’t matter, the only thing that matters is a), Jim is able to function on a personal basis, and b) Jim can function in the social arena without ostracism.

The little girl actually turned out to be an evil alien clone, shaped like a little girl. So that’s ok.

According to your own last one liner your last one liner is “a rationilzation and nothing more”.

Self-preservation is primarily and thus also meaningfully significant. Otherwise there would be no evolution.

I am not arguing with you on that one as you are correct.

So you are telling me that self preservation is meaningful and evolution is meaningful and life is meaningful and you are also telling me that this is not rationalizing as it is a fact that this meaningfulness is impregnated in this meaningful universe.

No, One Liner.

Read my post again, please, and then you will probably know what meaningful is and what rationalizing is.

If not, then read the following tab text:

[tab]I did NOT say that evolution was meaningful.
I did NOT say that life was meaningful.
I did NOT say that this was not rationalizing.
I did NOT say that it was a fact that this meaningfulness was impregnated in this meaningful universe.
I did NOT say that there was a meaningfulness.
I did NOT say that this universe was meaningful.
I merely said that self-preservation was meaningful. And I meant that it was meaningful for for each living being, because otherwise each living being would not defend the own life … and so on. This does NOT automatically mean that life is meaningful, that evolution is meaningful, that there is meaningfulness, that the universe is meaningful. It means that self-preservation is meaningful.[/tab]
Or read the following thread: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=190325.

So, self preservation preserves meaningless things and this action is meaningful.