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Why is it so hard to be rational?

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Re: Why is it so hard to be rational?

#61

Post by WhompingWindows »

jjbinx007 wrote: post #5
legrande wrote: post #2

I try to avoid mind viruses , or ideas that can hijack your decisions and thought process and take over. Think of a mind virus as a sort of dangerous meme that underpins everything you do. This is why first principles and making decisions based on sound foundations is better, absent of some sort of virulent dogma.

Viruses. Virii isn't the plural of virus. There's a YouTube channel (1) called Street Epistemology which has a guy interview members of the public and ask them if they have a belief they hold to be true such as "the supernatural exists" or "climate change is real" or "x is better than y". He then asks them to estimate how certain they are that it's true. Then they talk. The interviewer asks a question and makes notes…

I may be wrong, but "Mind Virii" could be using the genitive or possessive form of Virus, like "Mind of a Virus" or "Virus's Mind".

Re: Why is it so hard to be rational?

#62

Post by dfxm12 »

throwaway9690 wrote: post #30

I think part of the problem is that most people are conditioned into many beliefs from a young age I know a guy who hates foo (using a place holder). In fact he's downright foophobic. He is pretty convinced he has a natural unbiased hate of foo and is being rational when he expresses it. To me as an outsider it is pretty obvious that his hate of foo is the result of cultural conditioning. To him it is perfectly ratio…

It really depends what foo is. I don't think it's rational to waste time on unimportant things. If foo is eating red meat, then I don't think it's rational to really worry about it one way or another.

I think part of the problem is that most people are conditioned into many beliefs from a young age

I think it's irrational to not consider new information when processed. So, again, this depends on what foo is. If it is obeying speed limits even when no one else is on the road, and your friend learns the penalties for not obeying road signs when they get their license, they would probably find it irrational to not do the speed limit, even if they hate it. They wouldn't want to risk the fines, license suspension, etc.

However, let's say your friend's brother has stronger beliefs and can afford any fines and legal action. He could think about it and still decide that it's rational to not obey the speed limit. This doesn't make it right; I think right and rational are mutually exclusive.

Re: Why is it so hard to be rational?

#63

Post by Retric »

kubb wrote: post #52
someguy321 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read that fellow's blog (marginalrevolution.com) and he goes out of the way to get the best authentic local food he can get, he's well read about the history of many different countries and the economic implications of the recent history (he's an academic economist). He often does a brief blog writeup about the particularly culturally unique bits of places after he visits. Part of his job as an academic/ popular ec…

Don't get me wrong, gorging yourself on a variety of foods from around the world can be pleasurable. It also gives you zero insight into how people in that country are different than elsewhere. You could understand more about a country by studying it from home than by visiting it for a week. I don't like that it's presented as a lifestyle that people should strive to pursue. I know certain people here will vehemently…

It goes both ways.

No you really can’t understand a culture from a week of study the same way you can from being there for a week. The issue is the millions of unknown unknowns that you never really consider. How large is people’s personal space, where do they stand and look in an elevator, what’s traffic like, how loud are people, etc etc. Of course a week or three isn’t that long, but there are real diminishing returns here.

On the other hand personal experience is very narrow in scope. You’re never going to find out country wide crime rates by wondering around for a week.

Re: Why is it so hard to be rational?

#64

Post by FinanceAnon »

It's impossible to be absolutely rational. I feel like there is so many different levels and viewpoints that there is no right answer.

Simple example:

Let's say the same pair of shoes is available in two different shops, but in one shop it's more expensive. It seem more rational to buy it in the cheaper shop. However, what if you've heard that the cheaper shop is very unethical in how it conducts the business. Is it still more rational to buy the shoes there?

And then you might also start considering this situation "in the grand scheme of things" - in the grand scheme of things does it make any difference if I buy it in shop A or B?

And at which point does it become irrational to be overthinking simple things in order to try to be rational? What if trying to always be rational is stressing you out, and turns out to be worse in the long run?

Re: Why is it so hard to be rational?

#65

Post by WhompingWindows »

Can rationality exist outside of our minds? Is it just another mental heuristic?

In meditation, a common teaching is to examine an object for a long period, really just stare at it and allow your mind to focus on it fully. I see a coffee mug, it has a handle and writing on it, it's off-white and has little coffee stains. This descriptive mind goes a mile-a-minute normally, but eventually you can break through that and realize, this is just a collection of atoms, this is something reflecting photons and pushing back electrically against my skins' atoms. Even deeper, it's just part of the environment, all the things I can notice, like everything else we care about.

Such exercises can help reveal the nature of mind. There are many layers of this onion, and many separate onions vying for our attention at once. Rationality relies upon peeling back these superficial layers of the thought onion to get towards "the truth." That means peeling back biases, emotions, hunches, instincts, and all the little mental heuristics that are nice "shortcuts" for a biologically limited thinker.

But outside our minds, how is there any rationality left? It feels like another program or heuristic we use to make decisions to help us survive and reproduce.

Re: Why is it so hard to be rational?

#66

Post by snarf21 »

btilly wrote: post #14

I maintain that it isn't just hard, it is computationally impossible. We should all know that given a belief about the world, and evidence, Bayes' Theorem describes how to update our beliefs. But what if we have a network of interrelated beliefs? That's called a Bayesian net, and it turns out that Bayes' Theorem also prescribes a unique answer. However, unfortunately, it turns out that working out that answer is NP-h…

Agreed. The world is too complicated. There is too much noise. It might be possible to become fairly knowledgeable about a single issue but it would need to amount to an obsession. This is why we are so keen to belong. We've always tried to apply the "wisdom of the crowds". It is why people latch onto one viewpoint or the other, e.g. Red/Blue, FOX/CNN, etc., it takes all the work out of it. Once you find a source that you agree with on even ONE issue, just blindly trust/agree with them for everything. We'd rather spend our time streaming shows and living life than investing into deep knowledge of any subject.

Take a non political example: How safe are whole tomatoes to eat? What did the grocery store spray on them? Is it safe? Will it wash off? What about the warehouse were they were stored for months, what did they put on them to keep them from spoiling? What about the farmer, what did they spray on them to protect against pests? What is in the water, is it safe? Now we're ready to eat: Does anyone in my family have any kind of intolerance to raw tomatoes? And this is a pretty simple toy example.... In general, we've collectively decided to trust in the good in people. We hope that if something is bad/lie/harmful, then someone in the know will raise the alarm for the group.

Re: Why is it so hard to be rational?

#67

Post by karmakaze »

XorNot wrote: post #7
alecst wrote: post #4

It's really hard (for me, and I imagine, for everyone else) to not put myself into my views and opinions. Like, when someone shows me that I'm wrong, it's natural for me to feel attacked, instead of just taking it as a learning moment. Noticing when this happens and working with it has been my main struggle in learning how to be more rational. Those views and opinions really don't need to be a part of what I consider…

> Allowing multiple beliefs to overlap This doesn't seem very rational. If your beliefs are in conflict and you're content to not resolve that, then pretty much by definition you're accepting a logical inconsistency. If resolving the intersection doesn't lead to a new stable belief system, then aren't you basically going with "whatever I'm feeling that day"?

People who gain knowledge by adding to a consistent/stable belief system are the ones who have the most difficulty adapting to new situations and processing new information that may upend volumes of settled knowledge. You can recognize them as the dogmatic types that remember the rules but forget how/why they adopted them and are at a loss to update them.

Re: Why is it so hard to be rational?

#68

Post by OnACoffeeBreak »

legrande wrote: post #2

I try to avoid mind viruses , or ideas that can hijack your decisions and thought process and take over. Think of a mind virus as a sort of dangerous meme that underpins everything you do. This is why first principles and making decisions based on sound foundations is better, absent of some sort of virulent dogma.

Sci-fi novel "Lexicon" by Max Barry explores the idea of words used for persuasion to the extent of actually hacking the brain via spoken word to take control of the subject's thoughts and actions.

Re: Why is it so hard to be rational?

#69

Post by notsureaboutpg »

polote wrote: post #48
btilly wrote: post #14

I maintain that it isn't just hard, it is computationally impossible. We should all know that given a belief about the world, and evidence, Bayes' Theorem describes how to update our beliefs. But what if we have a network of interrelated beliefs? That's called a Bayesian net, and it turns out that Bayes' Theorem also prescribes a unique answer. However, unfortunately, it turns out that working out that answer is NP-h…

Well, it depends on the topic. Choosing rationally between the most green of two tomatoes is easy. You are limited by your ability to distinguish colors but you can still decide rationally. Not all questions have answers, if you want to be rational when you are asked to answer those question, you can just say "I dont know" At the beginning of the pandemic, when politics were saying mask dont work. You could just say,…

>You are limited by your ability to distinguish colors but you can still decide rationally.

Rationally, the ability to distinguish colors varies between human beings, so much so that with a sufficient number of tomatoes (say 50), you will have different people have different answers for which are the greenest.

Knowing that your ability to distinguish these colors of tomatoes might not be as strong as, say, a tomato farmer's (since he likely works with these specific fruits and colors all the time), you may be rationally inclined to follow his logic in choosing which are the greenest.

Do you follow your intuition or trust an expert? Your contrived example is already difficult to actually make the most rational decision for.

Re: Why is it so hard to be rational?

#70

Post by karmakaze »

Recognition of "motivated reasoning" can replace a whole lot of recognizing logical fallacies in your own or others' thought processes.

Here's an 20m audio interview[0] with the author of "The Scout Mindset: Why Some People See Things Clearly and Others Don’t"

It very well summarizes the way I like to gather information in an area so that I can form an opinion and direction of movement on a problem.

[0] https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1881404483658

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