On a meta level, I wonder how much of the missing rationality skills these people never had vs how much they had but lost later when they became politically mindkilled.
Can rationality be lost? Or do people just stop performing the rituals?
Heh, I immediately went: “What is rationality if not following (a specific kind of) rituals?” But I guess the key is the word “specific” here. Rationality could be defined as following a set of rules that happen to create maps better corresponding to the territory, and knowing why those rules achieve that, i.e. applying the rules reflectively to themselves. The reflective part is what would prevent a person from arbitrarily replacing one of the rules by e.g. “what my group/leader says is always right, even if the remaining rules say otherwise”.
I imagine that most people have at least some minimal level of reflection of their rules. For example, if they look at the blue sky, they conclude that the sky is blue; and if someone else would say that the sky is green, they would tell them “look there, you idiot”. That is, not only they follow the rule, but they are aware that they have a rule, and can communicate it. But the rule is communicated only then someone obviously breaks it; that means, the reflection is only done in crisis. Which means they don’t develop the full reflective model, and it leaves the option of inserting new rules, such as “however, that reasoning doesn’t apply to God, because God is invisible”, which take priority over reflection. I guess these rules have a strong “first mover advantage”, so timing is critical.
So yeah, I guess most people are not, uhm, reflectively rational. And unreflective rationality (I guess on LW we wouldn’t call it “rationality”, but outside of LW that is the standard meaning of the word) is susceptible to inserting new rules under emotional pressure.
I don’t see why not. It is, basically, a set of perspectives, mental habits, and certain heuristics. People lose skills, forget knowledge, just change—why would rationality be exempt?
Habits and heuristics are what I’d call “rituals.”
I don’t know about that. A heuristic is definitely not a ritual—it’s not a behaviour pattern but just an imperfect tool for solving problems. And habits… I would probably consider rituals to be more rigid and more distanced from the actual purpose compared to mere habits.
Are perspectives something you can lose?
Sure. You can think of them as a habitual points of view. Or as default approaches to issues.
Sure, when formerly rational people declare some topic of limits to rationality because they don’t like the conclusions that are coming out. Of course, since all truths are entangled that means you have to invent other lies to protect the ones you’ve already made. Ultimately you have to lie about the process of arriving at truth itself, which is how we get to things like feminist anti-epistomology.
Can rationality be lost? Or do people just stop performing the rituals?
Heh, I immediately went: “What is rationality if not following (a specific kind of) rituals?” But I guess the key is the word “specific” here. Rationality could be defined as following a set of rules that happen to create maps better corresponding to the territory, and knowing why those rules achieve that, i.e. applying the rules reflectively to themselves. The reflective part is what would prevent a person from arbitrarily replacing one of the rules by e.g. “what my group/leader says is always right, even if the remaining rules say otherwise”.
I imagine that most people have at least some minimal level of reflection of their rules. For example, if they look at the blue sky, they conclude that the sky is blue; and if someone else would say that the sky is green, they would tell them “look there, you idiot”. That is, not only they follow the rule, but they are aware that they have a rule, and can communicate it. But the rule is communicated only then someone obviously breaks it; that means, the reflection is only done in crisis. Which means they don’t develop the full reflective model, and it leaves the option of inserting new rules, such as “however, that reasoning doesn’t apply to God, because God is invisible”, which take priority over reflection. I guess these rules have a strong “first mover advantage”, so timing is critical.
So yeah, I guess most people are not, uhm, reflectively rational. And unreflective rationality (I guess on LW we wouldn’t call it “rationality”, but outside of LW that is the standard meaning of the word) is susceptible to inserting new rules under emotional pressure.
I don’t see why not. It is, basically, a set of perspectives, mental habits, and certain heuristics. People lose skills, forget knowledge, just change—why would rationality be exempt?
Habits and heuristics are what I’d call “rituals.”
Are perspectives something you can lose? I ask genuinely. It’s not something I can relate to.
I don’t know about that. A heuristic is definitely not a ritual—it’s not a behaviour pattern but just an imperfect tool for solving problems. And habits… I would probably consider rituals to be more rigid and more distanced from the actual purpose compared to mere habits.
Sure. You can think of them as a habitual points of view. Or as default approaches to issues.
Can rationality be lost?
Sure, when formerly rational people declare some topic of limits to rationality because they don’t like the conclusions that are coming out. Of course, since all truths are entangled that means you have to invent other lies to protect the ones you’ve already made. Ultimately you have to lie about the process of arriving at truth itself, which is how we get to things like feminist anti-epistomology.