Rationality is overrated

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.

Do you mean that if you integrate them, then it’s still rational?

I mean that if you Don’t integrate them, it is Irrational.

What did you think being w"holy" meant?

Makes sense to me.

At the point that what is labeled as completely useless is in this objective example at all, then it hasn’t been completely useless, has it?


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Huh? You mean it was useful because it got to be in the diagram?

It shows that the defining label of ‘completely useless’ should be considered to change to ‘mostly useless’, at the very least. Nothing likes to be ‘completely’ useless, especially when it exists anyway.

Well then, I don’t see why you would call that irrational if that’s precisely what you want to do. It’s irrational only in its appearance – it appears to the other that you are irrational – but not in itself.

Again, I would say you’re discussing goals here and not modes of judgment. You’re simply saying it’s sometimes better to be disrespectful towards others than to be respectful. You are NOT saying that there are times when it’s better to be irrational rather than rational.

There is, however, one sense in which trying to make your point clear to others, and in general perform some action, is irrational.

Suppose that it leads to frustration, to overwhelming emotional reaction. Wouldn’t then be rational to stop performing that action and irrational to keep performing it?

You are rational insofar your instincts work with each other rather than against each other. Reason isn’t opposed to instincts. It is only opposed to their confusion. Pretty sure that these people that you mention are rational.

What I’m calling “irrational” are the words you say to the other person, not necessarily what’s going on in your head. Take the example I gave above about going to a gay bar. If you say:

“I went to a gay bar.”

And just to push your buttons, I said: “So you’re gay?”

What I’m saying is not rational–it doesn’t follow from going to a gay bar that one is gay–though I may know it’s irrational in my head.

I’d use the word “cooperative”.

Sure, they can be just as rational as anyone else. But I’m saying that listening to the voice of one’s instincts or intuition is not the same thing as rationality–though I’ll agree that they aren’t opposed to it. I use the word “rationality” to denote a thought process–one thinks through something in a logical/rational manner; but sometimes one just “knows” the right answer, the correct course of action, by way of instinct or intuition, and in this case he is not using rationality (though again, it’s not necessarily incompatible with rationality). On the other hand, if one thought to one’s self: “I know my instincts have never lead me astray in the past; therefore, it seems reasonable that I can trust them in the present case; so then, I’ll trust my instincts.” ← That would be a rational thought process.

Like we need to sleep to stay alive so that we can wake up - I would say that we need some non-rational time to keep our rationality in good working order or something like that.

There was a time where everything I did had to be scientific, even the entertainment I watched and then one day I thought “wait a minute”. Wait a minute for what? It is the imagination that helps us to invent things not rationality. Ever since rationality became the big thing I have noticed a major drop in innovation - we just seem to be rehashing the same ideas. It has become a very repetitive world. Most people would disagree for reasons like “but it is the iPhone 7 not the iPhone 6” and I would say an iPhone is a bloomin iPhone.

Just saying.

:smiley:

:confused:
When do you think rationality “became the big thing”?

Yeah I know - I possibly should have even put in some parenthesis - (the exceptions). Either way innovation has dropped; “became the big thing” is most definitely overstating it. I say the majority of the population is actually crazy(colloquially speaking) and not rational at all however I do not see what the rational minority are doing that is actually fixing the worlds issues.

Tell me phyllo - do you think all of the research projects that are being funded are worth their money?

I also do not think some people deserve the jobs they have. As far as rationality is concerned, I see a lack of it at all levels. It is fairly important that rationality is employed where there are spending decisions that affect huge amounts of people.

So in essence phyllo, I may have made an error with what I was saying(which I am not going to lose sleep over) but I do not think that matters too much since that whole paragraph started out as a pointless anecdote. Also given the title of the thread I don’t think it hurts to play a little. I do not even know if the first sentence in my post is true. Just the same I am not even sure it is worth talking about. I could have said " Ever since extreme behavior became the big thing" but what is that anyhow?

:-k

I am just lost in a world that has a baffling amount of differing opinions.

Rationality became the big thing back in Ancient Greek times. It had a lull in the dark ages, then a resurgence in the Enlightenment, and now seems to be going into a lull again

I think it would take a bit more than a small handful of rational people to fix the world’s issues. Everybody needs to be on board. Otherwise, you’re just one rational man preaching to the deaf and the dumb.

Absolutely!

Hey Ed, this ties into some of my comments from your other thread–you know, about how the brain will use whatever strategy it must in order to get by. Rationality is just one strategy. Social tricks are another. Intuition is a third. The reason you see a disturbing lack of rationality all around you, and why you find yourself amidst a baffling amount of differing opinions, is because in today’s world, human brains are finding that strategies other than rationality work best for them. This may not have been the case a while back, say during the Enlightenment period, but it seems that anti-intellectualism is sweeping across the Western world in such awesome waves that many are doubting the utility of strict rationality.

I was not thinking real hard when I made the post - Socrates taught Plato who taught Aristotle if I am not mistaken and from what I remember reading, only Aristotle’s lecture notes survived, whereas writings of Plato survived. I am in fear of a modern dark ages and kind of figured an enlightenment of sorts was on the horizon for all of us a few years back but now I am not so sure.

Believe me, I totally agree.

I guess I am just a grumpy old brain and this was an occasion of selfish want - want for things to stay the same. It is strange though because I am always telling people that change is inevitable. You are correct that this ties into your other comments from the other thread and I also agree that the brain has strategies other than rationality. I actually read an interesting article on the social conscious that human seems to share which illustrated how most people imitate others if they see the benefit to their own lives . . . makes you think.